Ice hockey is a high paced, physically demanding sport that requires high levels of skill and endurance from the players. To stay on top of their game, ice hockey players are in need of reliable high performance equipment that enhances their game skills. One key piece of equipment used by players is the ice hockey stick. It is the stick that is used to hit the puck to move it around the rink during game play. Goals are scored in the game by hitting the puck into the opposing team's net.
There are several different kinds of shots that a player can take with his stick to move the puck around the rink. One important shot type is the “slap shot”. This shot is typically used in situations where great puck speed is required. In the slap shot, the player carries out a shot motion that causes his stick blade to hit the ice before it hits the puck. In most instances, when a player hits a slap shot, it is because he has decided that a shot having high puck speed would be beneficial under the circumstances. This may be the case for instance if the player is shooting on the net. The faster the puck travels toward the net, the less time the goalie will have to react to the shot and to prevent the puck from entering the net and a goal being scored. Depending on his position and a variety of other factors, a player may decide that a slap shot presents the best opportunity for him to score a goal.
The top puck speed (otherwise known as maximum shot speed of the stick) that may be generated by a slap shot (by a particular player) in any given instance will vary depending on a number of factors. The stick itself is an important factor. All other things being equal, the amount of additional energy that may be stored in a stick and imparted to the puck will determine the top puck speed generated by a slap shot using that stick.
While the literature (patent and otherwise) describes many different types of ice hockey sticks, and while there have certainly been improvements in ice hockey stick technology, the vast majority of sticks actually used over the past 125 years of playing the sport are very similar in size and shape to each other and to those in use today.
In this respect, today's conventional hockey sticks have a shaft and an adjoining blade. The shaft has a handle (being the portion that a typical player grasps during most of the course of normal use of the stick during game play) and a shank (being the portion extending below the handle to the connection point with the neck of the blade). The handle is generally rectangular usually with chamfered, bevelled or rounded corners (as the case may be—depending usually on the material of which the shaft is made and the method of its construction). The longer sides of the rectangle are those which form part of the front and rear faces of the shaft (the front face of the shaft being that face which faces in generally the same direction as the striking surface of the blade; the rear face being the face opposite the front face). The shank is also generally rectangular, however, its corners are not usually chamfered, bevelled nor rounded; or if they are, only slightly so. The shank tapers in width (between the front face and rear face) from the handle down the shaft towards the point to which the blade is attached. The shank does not usually taper in width between the left face and the right face of the shaft (the faces formed by the shorter two sides of the rectangle). The blade has a body having a striking surface and a neck extending upwards from the body that connects to the shank of the shaft.
Unlike their general size and shape, the materials of construction of ice hockey sticks have changed over the course of time. At various times ice hockey sticks have been made having shafts of solid wood, laminated wood, fibreglass-reinforced-polymer-coated wood, fibreglass-reinforced polymers, aluminium, titanium, and carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers. Similarly, at various times hockey stick blades have been commonly made of different materials including wood and carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers. Current conventional sticks are one piece sticks having both a shaft and a blade made of a carbon-fibre-reinforced polymer, the shaft typically being hollow.
As the materials of construction of sticks have changed, ice hockey stick design engineers have learned to manipulate various stick characteristics to improve the maximum shot speed of the stick. However, in recent years, the maximum shot speed of ice hockey sticks has plateaued, but hockey sticks having increased maximum shot speeds over what is currently available are desired in the marketplace.